1998 was designated as the International Year of the Ocean.[1]
January
January 6 – The Lunar Prospector spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently shadowed craters near the Moon's poles.
March 2 – Data sent from the Galileo probe indicates that Jupiter's moon Europa has a liquid ocean under a thick crust of ice.
March 5 – NASA announces that the Clementine probe orbiting the Moon has found enough water in polar craters to support a human colony and rocket fueling station.
Pokhran-II (Operation Shakti): India conducts three underground nuclear tests in Pokhran, including one thermonuclear device.
The first euro coins are minted in Pessac, France. Because the final specifications for the coins were not finished in 1998, they will have to be melted and minted again in 1999.
May 21 – Suharto (elected 1967) resigns after 31 years as President of Indonesia, effectively ending the New Order period. It is his 7th consecutive re-election by the Indonesian Parliament (MPR). Suharto's hand-picked Vice President, B. J. Habibie, becomes Indonesia's third president.
May 28 – Nuclear testing: In response to a series of Indian nuclear tests, Pakistan explodes five nuclear devices of its own in the Chagai hills of Baluchistan, codenamed Chagai-I, prompting the United States, Japan and other nations to impose economic sanctions. Pakistan celebrates Youm-e-Takbir annually.
Yangtze River Floods: in China the Yangtze river breaks through the main bank; before this, from August 1–5, peripheral levees collapsed consecutively in Jiayu County Baizhou Bay. The death toll exceeds 12,000, with many thousands more injured.
A United Nations court finds Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of nine counts of genocide, marking the first time that the 1948 law banning genocide is enforced.
Ibrahim Hanna, the last native speaker of Mlahsô, dies in Qamishli, Syria, making the language effectively extinct. Also, the last native speaker of related Bijil Neo-Aramaic, Mrs. Rahel Avraham, dies in Jerusalem.[23]
Flaherty DK (October 2011). "The vaccine-autism connection: a public health crisis caused by unethical medical practices and fraudulent science". Annals of Pharmacotherapy. 45 (10): 1302–4. doi:10.1345/aph.1Q318. ISSN1060-0280. PMID21917556. S2CID39479569.
"The History Of Google – Searching The World" (notes), Matt Jacks, January 10, 2005, webpage: WAH-HGoogleArchived April 2, 2007, at the Wayback Machine.
Ugwu, Reggie (December 21, 2022). "Steve Lacy Is Right on Time". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 3, 2023. Retrieved January 3, 2023– via NYTimes.com.
Corsillo, Angus Cloud, Liza (December 19, 2022). "What Angus Cloud Can't Live Without". The Strategist. Archived from the original on January 4, 2023. Retrieved January 17, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)